Only in England, he thought. The Germans had showered hundreds of tons of explosives on London over two nights and half the city had been blown to smithereens, yet the milkman was still calmly out on his rounds at six in the morning. “An amazing country!” he shouted, chuckling to himself. The milkman looked up and waved.
Voronov turned back in and went to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. His eyes were bloodshot, but then they were always bloodshot. His nose was thick, round and heavily veined. A typical Russian drinker’s nose, as his wife pointed out whenever he dared to criticise her own alcoholic consumption. His thick, woolly hair was greyer than a year ago, which, aesthetically speaking, was for the best, as it now made a better match with his thick, grey beard. Sifting through the latter, Voronov picked out small remnants of last night’s meal – a breadcrumb or two, the odd caviar egg, a scrap of beef. He ran the cold tap, bent down and splashed his face several times. He removed a small, black-lacquered box from the cabinet to his right, took out two pills and drank several glasses of cold water, with the last of which he took the pills. He had a bit of a headache, but no worse than usual. He shook his head. He needed to be in good form as it was going to be a busy day, as well, he hoped, as an enjoyable one.
*
Jack Stewart led his weary team through the door of the Chelsea Fire Station. He walked down the corridor, turned into the canteen and sat heavily on one of the chairs at the main table. His team did likewise, with the exception of Francis Evans, who wandered off towards the bunk room.
“Gawd! You lot look like death warmed up. Better get the tea on.” Elsie and the other helper, Jean, were short, plump, middle-aged cockney ladies who might have been sisters but weren’t. Elsie busily set to with a vast kettle and a teapot almost as big, while Jean began making sandwiches. Every man’s face was streaked with soot and as they sat in the unventilated warm room, trails of blackened perspiration dropped down onto the table, their clothes and the floor.
Evans reappeared carrying a book, which he dropped in front of Stewart. “There you are. The Art of J M W Turner. I brought it from home yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to give it to you.”
Stewart reached over for a towel hanging over a nearby chair and wiped his face and hands.
“Oh, don’t worry about getting it dirty. I’ve got another copy as it happens.”
It was a big glossy book with more pictures than words. Stewart’s eyes felt as if someone had poured vinegar into them and rubbing them with his blackened hands only made them worse. He eventually managed to focus on the pages in front of him. He flicked idly through until he came to Turner’s picture of the Houses of Parliament going up in flames. That was a gap in his history then – he had never realised that Parliament had burned down in the first half of the nineteenth century. He stared intently at the brilliant glowing image Turner had painted. The viewpoint of the painting was the south side of Westminster Bridge and buildings, river, bridge and people all merged into a roaring outburst of colour and violence.
“Glorious, isn’t it? I think that’s one of his best. You know, it’s taken as read by the artistic establishment that France has been the fount of artistic innovation over the past fifty years. They say that the French invented impressionism, for example – but what can be more impressionistic than this painting, created long before all those French chaps – Monet, Seurat, Renoir and so on. Wonderful!”
Stewart felt himself being drawn into Turner’s brilliant creation. He could feel the flames swirling in his face just as, a few hours before, he had gazed helplessly as he watched the catastrophic effect that a string of incendiary bombs falling in quick succession had had on a rubber tyre factory. He closed the book and nodded at Evans. “Thanks. I’ll look at it more closely when I’ve had a bit of a rest. Let’s just hope what’s happening in the painting doesn’t repeat itself!”
*